Last week at MWC, while most of the attention at Intel's booth was on Intel's cell phones and tablets, a lot of attentions were given to Intel's new low-power, multimode-multiband 4G LTE modem, XMM 7160. This is because many operators are moving to 4G and the LTE standard, and Intel needed a 4G modem for its mobile phones to be competitive. Intel leaders such as Hermann Eul, vice president and co-GM of the Mobile Communications Group, told the press this week that the modem is “world class” and one of the smallest and most power-efficient on the market. Itshown our solution to be world class, and I’m confident that our offerings will lead Intel into new multi-comm solutions.”

The Intel XMM 7160 global LTE modem, described as one of the world’s smallest and lowest-power multimode-multiband LTE solutions, will support 15 LTE bands simultaneously, more than any other in-market solution, and will ship later in the first half of 2013;

A new independent research report that tested 16 existing or soon-to-market LTE chipsets awarded top honors to Intel's 7160 modem, outperforming solutions from Qualcomm, Nvidia, Altair, and others;

First LTE modem tops independent benchmark

The report, by Signals Research Group, put 16 LTE chipsets from eight vendors through 32 different test scenarios using industry standard methodology, according to the report’s summary (the full report is now online, available for internal use only). “Three companies vie for top honors,” it says, but “Intel’s pre-commercial solution was the top-performing solution that we tested.”

In addition, the 7160 offers global roaming in a single SKU (many LTE modems in the market today require different versions for different LTE bands and networks). It also includes a highly configurable wireless architecture with intelligence for envelope tracking and antenna tuning that enables cost-efficient multiband configurations and extended battery life.

Intel is currently shipping its single mode 4G LTE data solution and will begin multimode shipments later in the first half of this year.

Product

Protocol

Description

Features

Intel® XMM™ 7160

Multimode LTE & DC-HSPA

Based on X-GOLD™ 716 Digital- and Analog Baseband with integrated Power Management Unit and the 2G/3G/LTE Transceiver SMARTi™ 4G, the XMM™ 7160 multimode platform is the most compact solution for LTE/DC-HSPA Smart Phones for worldwide deployment.